Polymers for energy applications

Conductive polymers consolidate the attractive properties related with traditional polymers and special electronic properties of metals or semiconductors. As of late, nanostructured conductive polymers have stimulated significant research enthusiasm because of their special properties over their macro-scale counterparts, for example, large surface area and short distances for charge/mass transport, making them potential candidates for expansive applications in energy storage and conversion, actuators, sensors and biomedical devices. Various synthesis techniques have been created to produce conductive polymer nanostructures and high performance devices in view of these nanostructured conductive polymers. This provides us with various applications of nanostructured conductive polymers such as electrode material for electrochemical capacitors and lithium-ion batteries and new perspective of practical materials for cutting edge high-energy batteries. Recently fuel cell systems with polymer-based electrolytes are of special interest for certain applications due to their relatively simple and compact design and high power densities. On the fundamental level, they are further classified according to the nature of ionic-conducting species in the polymer-based electrolyte, i.e., acidic (proton conducting) or alkaline (hydroxide ion conducting) membranes. Solar cells are one of the most reliable renewable sources of energy and but it is not the most efficient. Therefore, there is constant progress in improving the solar cells to provide greater efficiency. For this development different materials have been tested, among them are polymers. The polymer solar cells have a wide range of application including flexible solar modules and semi-transparent solar cells in windows, to building applications and even photon recycling in liquid-crystal displays.